


Efficient pictorial communication of complex ideas (the kids call it a meme)

by sorrens



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Crack, Crowley invented memes, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gab and Beez are a thing, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, No Betas We Fall Like Crowley, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Rather, millenial humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 10:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19665865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrens/pseuds/sorrens
Summary: The one in which Aziraphale is forced headlong into millennial humour trying to work out what Crowley means when he says "Gabriel and Beelzebub are smashing".





	1. Chapter 1

Aziraphale knows all about tea. Heavens, he was even there when the first pot was brewed. He was partial to a steaming hot Earl Grey with a dash of milk and half a teaspoon of sugar. Sometimes, it would slip his mind that Crowley wasn’t a tea drinker and when the demon swaggered in to the bookshop unannounced he instinctively put the kettle on. Or maybe, deep down, Aziraphale was trying stubbornly to change his mind tempt him to a cup. Probably in an attempts to save the already-perpetually-manic demon from infernal espresso shots he was always downing.

Usually his offer of “Tea?” as Crowley sunk on to the worn couches at the back of the bookshop was met with a quip about leaf water or how it was a poor man’s scotch, or something equally ridiculous and snarky.

Today, however, he slunk in looking rather ruffled. Before Aziraphale could even offer a drink—

“Angel, I’ve got some tea for you.”

Aziraphale looked blankly at his friend. No, Crowley wasn’t holding anything. Wait, why would he bring his own tea anyway? He knew that the bookstore had a kettle and an array of teas from all over the world (such that the angel had a tea pantry as well as a regular pantry). Maybe he was talking about that particular brand of rum that he sometimes referred to as “spicy tea”? No the demon didn’t have a bottle with him either. Bizarre.

“I was walking up Abbey street. Demonic business, sneaky, sneaky…” Aziraphale wasn’t sure why Crowley insisted on maintaining the pretence that he was doing anything remotely helpful for down below but his eyes were alight with eagerness, and so he didn’t interrupt. “…And I walked past that coffee shop,”

“Oh, the one I pointed out—“

“With the lovely petit fours, yes.” Crowley pressed on with a tone of urgency.

As the kids would say, and as would be lost on Aziraphale, this tea was scalding. The secret burned his throat until he managed to force it out.

“And guess who I saw there? Gabriel and Beelzebub, sitting at the same table, not smiting each other… eating macarons.” The inflection in his voice seemed to indicate that this was the most shocking detail.

“ _Macarons_ , angel.” He slammed his hand down on the coffee table as though proving a point and chuckled at the joke that Aziraphale couldn’t quite see. For those following along at home, there was no joke, really, rather the connotations of a fearsome demon and archangel agreeing to have tea together. What’s more, Crowley swore they were making google eyes at each other. He was quite adept at spotting these kinds of things, after all. When he’d finished cackling and had settled down, the bored expression on the angel’s face pushed him to drop the topic altogether. Aziraphale wasn’t a fun gossip. In all his years of knowing him, Crowley would have to say it was one of the angel’s few failings but, boy, was it frustrating sometimes.

He let the room dissolve in to silence. Aziraphale stood motionless in the middle of the room for a few minutes as though faced with an unsolvable riddle. Really, he was still stuck on the fact that Crowley had proposed that he was supplying tea.

“So tea is information?” Aziraphale squinted.

“Just gossip, really.”

The angel wrinkled his nose as if to say _“angels of the lord don’t deal in gossip”_ , but didn’t interrupt. Crowley, however, feeling like a little education was in order, took out his phone and opened Google.

“These word, these sayings, hell even memes are my prized creation. They’ve gone viral.”

“They’re pathogenic? You’re _infecting_ people… why on earth would you—“

“If you got out from that rock you’re under once in a while,” Crowley cut him off, exasperated. “You’d see that they’ve become a useful conduit through which depressed millennials communicate their existential angst. It’s one of my more innovative ideas, dare I say, good ideas. You’d like it at least because it was such a flop when I presented it to hell. I must admit it has done stuff-all to contribute to the collecting souls for hell, but it’s become a pet project.”

“… I like my rock.” Was his only defence.

Like anyone mentally stuck in the late 19th century, Aziraphale sniffed at the idea of adding any new phrases to his vocabulary or betraying his 28 dictionaries (arranged by publication date, the newest being 1878) which contained the sum of all allowable words in English discourse.* 

*Although he did have a soft spot for slipping _raison d’être_ in to conversations and it wasn’t technically in his English dictionaries but it was the only phrase he’d found powerful enough to describe his drive to protect his book collection from the prying public.

But there was one thing he was curious about…

“Is that the internet you’re holding?” The angel peered at the small screen. “Why are you of all peo— things entrusted with such a thing. My, it’s awfully small. Are you sure this is the whole internet?”

“No, the internet isn’t a thing— it’s a— ah” he snapped, but Aziraphale’s confusion was deepening.

“Yes,” he sighed “I’m holding the internet.” Blimey. He would have to start the angel off with something basic.

In to the search bar went: _grumpy cat_

“Why is he grumpy?”

“That’s just what his face looks like. It’s funny, angel!”

“Poor darl.”

Crowley groaned and yanked back ~~the phone~~ , sorry, the internet. He wasn’t in the mood to explain millennial humour to an oblivious angel anymore than morality to a demon, though arguably the latter might prove more fruitful.

“Right, well, just dropped by to tell you that your pal Gabriel and Beezlebub are definitely smashing. T-T-Y-L.” He sauntered to the door, shooting a malicious hiss in the direction of a customer who was getting far too attached to a first reprint War and Peace. She dropped it and fled hurriedly.

There was a lot to unpack, and most of it was nonsense and he didn’t quite want to spend his time deciphering cryptic messages from the demon but Aziraphale sensed that, judging by how the archangel and the duke of hell had been mentioned, it was probably something of earth-shattering importance. Grabbing a notebook from his cluttered desk, he carefully wrote down the words that were causing him confusion:

They were Crowley’s apparent erroneous use of the verb **to smash** , which seemed to bare no relevance to the sentence topic(s). Also, the letters **TTYL** which he hoped wasn’t a new fan-dangled swearword that the demon had invented. He didn’t like it when Crowley was annoyed with him.

His vast array of dictionaries couldn’t shed any more light on the message than Aziraphale could discern on his own, obviously. The next he knew he was at the local skate park, surprisingly. He was attempting quite unsuccessfully to flag down one of the millennials that were zooming past, perhaps using a more era specific greeting may have helped.

“Excuse me, good fellow.”

The skater had the audacity to make a profane hand gesture in reply.

None stopped.

Desperate, Aziraphale found a young boy sitting in the nearby sandpit. In an attempt to be friendly and relatable, the angel lowered himself down to the boy’s level and he grimaced as he felt his shoes begin to fill with sand.

“Hello dear.”

The boy regarded him carefully. “Hi,”

Aziraphale jumped straight in to his purpose for his visit to the place where the vagrants (and apparently, seemingly abandoned 10 year olds) lurked. “I need help. Can you tell me what these mean/“ he showed the notebook to the child.

He grabbed the book and held it unnecessarily close to his face. It suddenly struck the angel that maybe the boy couldn’t yet read. 

“Well,” he said authoritatively. “That stands for talk to you later.” He stabbed at the acronym.

“Oh, okay.” Aziraphale felt a bit deflated at the benign translation. Helpful, but not altogether meaningful and he’d just wasted an hour trying to brainstorm places where millennials congregated. On the bright side, at least he knew Crowley wasn’t mad enough to stop talking to him?

“Annnnnd…” the kid spluttered a bit at the other word on the page. He passed the notebook back to the angel, glancing furtively at a woman over by the barbecues who must have been his mother, hopefully. The boy leaned in and whispered to Aziraphale.

“Smashing means they’re doing the do,”

“What?” Aziraphale looked blank. The boy had covered his mouth, cackling and shook his head unwilling to say anymore.

“Doing the— Oh!” Aziraphale’s eyes widened and instantly went a deep shade of red. His first instinct was to wipe the boy’s memory of, well, everything, especially wherever he’d picked up that knowledge. The angel bristled and settled just to erase the memory of him having asked. At that time he was far too shocked by the boy’s unsetting insightfulness to think of the broader insinuations in the demon’s choice of words.

It was only later that he began to connect the dots. He arrived back at the bookshop to find a queue of customers waiting patiently for opening time, but as the owner approached they miraculously remembered pressing errands and quickly dispersed. If the angel had been slightly more fluent in 21st century slang it would be an understatement to say he was shook by the idea that their superiors were having… relations. Maybe, “shooketh to the core” would be more appropriate in this instance.

Not prepared to subject any more children any more trauma about whether or not a certain angel and demon were… smashing, Aziraphale decided to preform the proverbial software update of his earthly knowledge by stooping so low as to visit a bookshop. A bookshop that actually aimed to sell books. Almost as ridiculous as what Crowley had suggested, in the angel’s opinion.

“We live in interesting times,” he muttered to himself as he browsed the suspiciously mass-produced books. He could’ve gone the whole hog and asked Crowley where he’d be able to purchase an internet, or ask to borrow his, but that would entail divulging to the demon that he was trying to get with the times. Aziraphale had spent a good couple of centuries stubbornly annoying the times, unless the times happened to produce some great literature or a novel flavour of oreos. He approached a spotted teen reordering the bestsellers.

“Hello, I was wondering if you could please point me in the direction of the slang books?” The teen looked blank.

“The what- whats?”

Well, frankly this was _terrible_ customer service, thought the angel, maybe they were in the business of not selling books.

“I was told, uh… something, something… me-mes?”

“Oh, memes, yeah we’ve got a few books over in the humour section, emojis and twitter posts and—“

Aziraphale tuned out when the boy switched languages mid sentence and just nodded politely as they walked through the store. The shop assistant left him in front of a shelf crammed full of raging neon books and returned to his shelving without a word. He skimmed over the spines of the various iterations of “emojis for dummies” and “memes for morons”. Well, that was a bit rude. He chose the only book that didn’t take a stab at his intelligence, peeking at the price tag, and lamenting that twenty pounds was what it took to get some respect in this century.

It wouldn’t be amiss to predict that Aziraphale took to internet culture in the same way water takes to a duck’s back, in that he didn’t. But one of his three hallmark qualities was his intelligence and having adapted to the various iterations of the English language over the millennia it only took one reading of “So you want to be woke?” And a trip to the local library (where an eighty year old lady abandoned her knitting to help him turn on the computer) before he begun to assimilate the lingo. He found some classical art memes, which were his gateway to discovering entire sites dedicated to niche memes and jokes that were either wildly inaccurate or hilarious or both. Browsing the trending videos on a YouTube led him to vine compilations and how these humans had managed to communicate in such a precise fashion that a 7 second clip left him roaring with laughter was nothing short of awe inspiring.

The angel resolved to test some of his newfound knowledge on Crowley next time he saw the demon. 

It would be… _reminisce of an incendiary device?… oh wait… yes,_ **lit**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll write/upload the second half tomorrow :) contemplated an all nighter but I think 2am humour is a special breed that ideally should not be recorded and published on the inter webs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Multiple vine references, a mysterious eggplant, and a lettuce meme.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know I said 1 more chapter but I'm beating around every bush to get to the point, so I'm officially stretching it out to 4.

Though the amount of information he’d absorbed over the last 24 hours was immense, there was enough of the bastard part of Aziraphale to resolve to string Crowley along a bit before the big reveal. But millennial quips were like a knee jerk reaction sometimes, like a large portion of his brain was now dedicated to assigning vine quotes to real life situations. The old Aziraphale would have considered this a waste of valuable resources. The new Aziraphale was pleasantly amused by this witty addition to his prefrontal cortex.

The first slip up came as the two of them poured over sushi menus. (Or, rather, Aziraphale looked at the Sushi menu and Crowley pretended it was considering something other than his usual sake).

“Hello dear, could I please get sashimi plate #3.” He peered at the pixillated pictures beside the dishes. “Just to be clear, is that the one with the fresh a-vock-a-doo?”

The waitress gave him a strange looked. The angel hadn’t realised he’d mispronounced anything. He’d seen that vine so many times by now, his language centre had amended the pronunciation of the fruit.

There was a pause.

“He means avocado.” Crowley said, shooting a strange look at Aziraphale in the process.

“Oh, right. Of course!” The waitress laughed politely. English wasn’t her first language either. She tried her best to sympathise with the _German? Swedish? Croatian?_ man on his mistake, at least he’d tried. Most foreigners would’ve just pointed at the picture to communicate their point. His friend and translator ordered an indeterminate unit of sake (“lots,” the man had drawled, and she’d been left to make sense of that, finally settling on 3 glasses delivered at 15 min intervals. She seemed to have judged well based on the way the red-head was draining his previous glass as she came out with the next.)

“What was that, angel?” Crowley muttered as the waitress departed.

“What was what?” Said Aziraphale mildly, still yet to cotton on to his mistake.

“A-vock-a-doo?”

The angel coloured.

“Oh, did I say that? Sorry dear boy. Brain… slip.” He began fussing with the menus and straightening the cutlery. In all the 6000 years of being acquainted, Crowley had never heard Aziraphale utter anything short of perfectly eloquent. Even when he got angry and self-righteous, the man maintained the refined speech of an English aristocrat. Which, for all intents and purposes, the angel still seemed to think he was.

He let it slide (or slip) without question, but the arrival of their order allowed him to squeeze in one snarky “Your a-vock-a-doo, Sir.” As the waitress placed the platter on the table. She bristled at this comment, half tempted to tell off the man for teasing his friends accent, but was thankfully distracted by the incoming of new diners.

_Bother, bother._ Aziraphale cleaned up his plate and took care of the bill whilst Crowley nursed his final sake (“Angel, this is not a lot, was I not specific enough?” “Maybe you could specify an amount next time, dear.” “Oh, okay. Next time it’ll be all of their sake.”) He’d wanted to be strategic in unveiling his newfound knowledge. It was very rare for him to have any grasp of culture from the last couple of centuries, a fact which Crowley often mocked him for. He mentally replayed each instance when the demon explained modernity in a somewhat condescending tone*. There were a lot of them. He reserved a special spot for the memory of the look on Crowley’s face when he realised that Aziraphale understood millennial humour. It wasn’t becoming of an angel to be competitive, Aziraphale had always told himself that, and had used it as an adequate excuse to ignore “keeping up with the times”. Crowley, like most demons, lived his existence in the fast lane — temptations, technology, advancements — everything was a competition, the prize for the winner perhaps yet to be revealed. Aziraphale wouldn’t use the word “competitive” to describe himself, rather, maybe ambitious. Now that he had severed his connections with heaven, he might as well try beat Crowley at his own game. After all, YOLO**, right?

*To Crowley, sitting across from him, it looked like the angel was buffering for a good few minutes as he sorted through these memories.

**YOLO applies in the case where he were to be unfortunately discorporated and then heaven refuse to reissue him a vessel, which was very likely considering their strained relationship, so Aziraphale felt justified in appropriating this slang.

Leaving the restaurant, they headed back to the bookshop on foot. (Crowley drinks. Crowley drives. But he never does them together thank-you very much.) It was only around the corner that Aziraphale got handed the opportunity to plant an intentional seed of doubt in the demon’s mind. Well, the opportunity was not handed to him, per say. Rather, as two loud _beeps_ of a car horn in succession. Aziraphale was reminded of a nonsense meme with a rabbit that made absolutely no logical sense but he nursed a soft spot for nonetheless.

“Lettuce.” Aziraphale called out across the darkening street in the vague direction of the horn. Crowley flinched and turned to the angel, eyebrows retracting in to his hairline.

“What dear? You’re looking at me as if I’ve sprouted another dozen eyes.” He raised his hands to his face in mock horror. “I haven’t, have I? I’m still in my corporal form, right?”

Crowley, who was thus far unaware that Aziraphale was even aware of sarcasm, took this all at face value.

“Ngk.” He grunted. “You’re fine, angel.” They continued walking without further comment, a smug smile tugging at Aziraphale’s lips.

The game was afoot.


	3. Chapter 3

It took only took 3 references before Crowley cracked. It is important to stress that he “cracked”, not “realised”. It seemed that something about Aziraphale gradually acquainting himself world of millennial humour drove the demon gradually insane. In no specific order, his inevitable breakdown was precipitated by a pair of white Heelies, a deceptive aubergine, and aided by one traitorous Bentley.

Aziraphale began where this all started. When they had returned to his bookshop and Crowley had insisted on supplementing his paltry three glasses of sake with a double scotch, the angel address the lingering elephant in the room. Or, what he believed to be the elephant. There were, in fact, probably enough elephants to start a modest zoo exhibit.

“So, I take it that Gabriel and Beezlebub are seeing each other… in that way?”

Crowley spluttered and hastily put his glass on the table.

“Oh, dear, you know I got there eventually.” Aziraphale tried to hide his disappointment that Crowley’s reaction indicated he wouldn’t work it out.

“I’m not an idiot.” He followed up defensively. “I can use a mobile fellytone—“

“—Telephone—“ Crowley interjected with a hint of annoyance that the angel relished: his inner dialogue [which lately resembled Kermit with a hooded coat] was urging him to wind up the demon as much as possible.

Crowley sighed and buried his face in his hands.

“Okay, okay. I was just speculating at the bit. I didn’t honestly think you’d catch on to what I was insinuating. Your latest dictionary is from eighteen-bloody-seventy-eight!”

Aziraphale was determined to move away from his dated book collection.

“I wonder if they are?” He mused, and Crowley choked again.

“Better not be.”

“I don’t mind.” Said Aziraphale levelly and the demon gave him a horrified look.

“Look, angel. I know Gabe is a bit of a bastard but you don’t know Beez. They’ll drag him down to the innermost circle of hell and there will be no turning back for him.”

Aziraphale shrugged and took Crowley’s empty glass, heading for the kitchen.

“I don’t particularly care for Gabriel.” He stopped and reconsidered. “Actually, scratch that, I hate him and I’d sell him to Satan for one corn chip.”

He bustled off to the kitchen, leaving Crowley wide eyed. The demon shifted slightly in his seat, glaring off in to the distance as if into an invisible camera, as if screaming to this world’s producers to get-him-the-hell-out-of-here*.

 ***** That would be God and historically speaking he would’ve had more luck delivering the message through prayer, rather than pretending he was on an episode of The Office.

A few days passed without incident. Incident, in this case, being defined as “alarmingly era appropriate humour” delivered from an unlikely angelic source. The bookshop was closed, so Crowley broke in. (He’d long since learned that knocking nearly made Aziraphale discorporate out of fear of a particularly eager customer.) The angel was sitting at his desk, pouring over an old manuscript and—

“Angel, is that a phone?” Aziraphale shut the book hurriedly, leaving the device awkwardly sandwiched between the pages.

“What— oh yes.” There was no denying it now. Still wearing his customary white gloves (that he’d since miracled to work on touch screens) he pried the phone out from its hiding spot.

Crowley couldn’t help it, his face broke out in to a smug smirk. The angel had been studying an iPhone 5 intently, as if it were an original Homer.

“I thought,” he turned the mobile over in his hands distractedly. “I thought I could “get with the times a bit”” before Crowley could squeeze in an “I told you so”, the angel quickly amended.

“Just because my landline keeps disconnecting and I thought it would be more convenient for today’s customer to have a mobile contact.”

The demon slouched on to the couch.

“Today’s customer?” He mused. “Have you had a customer today, perchance?”

Aziraphale shifted under his glare.

"No, no haven’t quite opened up yet.”

“Angel, it’s 5:30pm!”

“Oh, look at the time, maybe tomorrow.”

“Well,” Crowley reclined and put his hands behind his head. “How _lovely_ you’ve got your customer’s best interests at heart.”

Aziraphale nodded and avoided the demon’s smirk. 

“So, how’re you finding it?”

“Finding what?”

“The phone, do you need me to explain it—“ Crowley reached out but Aziraphale snatched the phone out of his grasp.

“I’ll have you know I can work it perfectly fine. I spoke to a man in a shop who got me an internet and what he called an “emoji pack” and I think that’s all I need.”

Crowley snorted at the idea of the angel using emojis. Or just the idea of the angel texting. He’d probably compose a text like a letter and sign it off with a “yours sincerely” at the end.

“Emojis?”

“Yes, dear, they’re quite interesting. A bit of a minefield if I must be honest, but I know the basics.”

“Minefield?” Crowley frowned.

“Well, yes, some emojis that look like one thing actually mean another thing.” This was news to the demon, but he tried to remain a front of sagacity.

“Oh, for example?”

Aziraphale leaned forward, somewhat satisfied that the demon wasn’t going to pinch his dinosaur of a phone.

“Like…” he pulled up the notes app (how did he already have 6 lists going?). He opened a new note and scrolled through to the vegetable emojis and selected one.

“Yeah, that’s an aubergine.” Crowley couldn’t hide his confusion now. “Oh, oh, I know some countries call it an eggplant? That’s what you mean?”

Aziraphale tittered and paused for suspense. It wasn’t often that he got to lord knowledge over Crowley like this. Now, to explain it in a way that will keep this retelling PG rated:

“It can also mean male genitalia.” the angel said primly.

“WOT?” The demon leapt from his seat, shocked. It wasn’t that he was a liberal user of the aubergine emoji himself. In fact, any time it looked like he was texting he was just playing Flappy Bird* to get out of talking with people. Hearing this kind of information, from an angel nonetheless, was…

“I need a minute,” he buried his face in his hands once again and hissed an unintelligible string of what probably were explicatives, but for the sake of propriety, we won’t elaborate any further.

*Which he'd resurrected from the fiery depths of internet hell purely because he was addicted, okay? 

Aziraphale had never seen Crowley so shell-shocked. Not even during times in history when his shell-shock was, quite literally, shell-shock. The demon excused himself soon after this revelation, muttering about plants that needed babysitting. It wasn’t until the Bentley screeched away from the curb that Aziraphale started shaking with laughter. Now that he was versed in the millennial lexicon he could safely conclude that Crowley was “shook” by the angel’s insight.

* * *

“Bastard,” Crowley hissed as he sped along a one way backstreet (which way was the one way? He wasn’t quite sure.) So Aziraphale had been taking 21st Century lessons, or something of the sort. Crowley knew the angel wasn’t dumb. In fact, he was one of the most intelligent beings he’d ever met. But he was stubborn, and stubbornness is always the biggest hinderance to progress. The demon had expected him to cotton on to millennial speak sometime in the 25th century when it was a kitsch relic of the time.

“Okay, think Crowley. Think.” Demons weren’t the most insightful of beings and had Crowley bothered to spend just a few hours in therapy over the course of his 6000 year existence he might’ve been able to pin down why he was so _shook_.

Firstly, the demon had carved an identity out of being the modern one of the duo, Aziraphale was encroaching on his turf, He felt threatened.

Secondly, his hyper fixation on the now had been such a good source of distance between the angel and himself. It was a safety net that he could always rely on to stop them from getting too close. No, the cautious part of his brain would argue they existed in different centuries and this temporal barrier was enough to extinguish any feelings*.

His mind jumped straight to the solution for a problem he couldn’t name.

The solution went something like this: Heelies.


	4. Wear Heelys to Escape Ya Feelies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a culmination of their meme wars, the duo aren't quite on the same page... misunderstanding ensues. Heelys are mandatory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly less meme heavy conclusion but this is a fluff/crack fest guys. They're both idiots. Aziraphale is a bastard.  
> If I find an adequately horrible pair of shoes I'll hyperlink them.  
> Enjoy <3

Crowley didn’t have much time. He had to intervene before the angel discovered dank memes, which was the start of the slippery slope towards surrealism and deep fried memes. Crowley himself was aware of their existence, but refrained from engaging with them, they constituted the dark web of millennial humour — and for some — the point of no return.

If he were honest, he didn’t mind Aziraphale’s sense of humour to begin with. Sure, it was usually lagging a few decades behind and peppered with god-awful jokes that even the average dad wouldn’t want to associate with. But he got sarcasm and he had an exception grasp of irony and used both liberally and cuttingly, much to Crowley’s delight. The delight was doubly so when the snark was directed at an authority figure, like Gabriel or the man at the post office who held Aziraphale’s book orders captive without proof of a valid ID*.

_* [Aziraphale didn’t have one from the last century. Timothy, a representative of “The Royal Mail” couldn’t, in good conscious allow him to collect the parcel without photo ID. The angel had nodded sagely, commending him on doing such a thorough job as a means of distraction whilst he conjured up an appropriate card. He pulled it out of his waistcoat pocket and held it out. Timothy squinted._

_“It’s says your birth year is Undefined, Mr Fell.” Shit._

_Aziraphale gave up the charade and let Crowley wipe his memory whilst he marched off with his book.]_

The point was: Aziraphale was Aziraphale and that was enough for Crowley. That was comfortable. That was what he’d come to know over the years, the constant anchor in the unwieldy storm of humanity’s whims. He avoided the fast lane that was tripping over your feet to own the latest phone, fast fashion and online streaming services whose lineup changed hourly. Crowley invented the fast lane, and did his best to keep up appearances, but would settle down in the bookshop at the end of the day to a conversation about Richard III with the only person who mattered.

His internal dialogue was on autopilot by this point and he all but missed the stunning confessions his brain was making unattended. He was currently distracted by sorting through his wardrobe of snake skin boots, expecting to find a appallingly garish pair of Heelys somewhere. Naturally, he did.

It does not hurt to mention that the demon’s processes of logic were faulty at the best of times. Part and parcel of this was that he always failed to realise this until it was too late. This was his current idea:

He’ll take Aziraphale out to the park to show off his Heelys. The idiocy of them in a public place would leave the angel so embarrassed that he abandons his pursuit of meme culture and trades his dusty phone in for a dustier copy of a book that they could argue over whilst drinking themselves into a stupor.

It would be generous to call this a logical chain of events but most of Crowley’s cortex was unknowingly panicking with the thought that his angel had been corrupted by the likes of Pepe.

“I thought we could go out.”

Aziraphale looked up from his old manuscripts in surprise, smile blossoming across his face.

“Really, my dear?”

Crowley gave him a funny look.

“Uh, yeah,” his tone leaning towards “duh”, they went out quite often, after all.

“Like, out-out?” Asked the angel cautiously.

Crowley peered out the window. It wasn’t raining if that’s what the other was implying.

“Yeah, out-out.” He was too busy deciding whether the clouds were looking particularly ominous to notice the way Aziraphale’s face flushed.

“Well, I better get ready. What time are you picking me up?” He jumped up, eyes darting around, not even thinking to ask where they were going. Crowley wanted to go out with him.

The demon frowned at the flurry of activity.

“I guess I can come back in half an hour if you really need time to get ready.”

“Nonsense, you can just wait here, I’ll be back in a jiffy!” The angel paused, giving Crowley a once over. “Is that what you’ll be wearing?”

It was what Crowley was always wearing.

“Surely you’d want to, I don’t know, dress up a little dear?”

Crowley smirked at the proposition. Yes, he would be dressing up quite a bit. He thought of the eclectic heelys stashed under the backseat of the Bentley.

“Maybe, a suit?” _Why was Aziraphale flashing him with the puppy dog eyes?_ Suddenly Crowley felt like he was missing something, but obliged, snapping his fingers to appear in a svelte black suit that hugged his slim frame. He had a sudden vision of himself gliding through St James’ park, dressed to the nines with the atrociously atrocious shoes that were the work of the devil*.

* _[Well, technically they were invented by Crowley, so the work was outsourced.]_

He chuckled to himself as Aziraphale began to dart around, muttering a hurried “back in a minute” and shuffling to the back room.

Aziraphale had taken a minute to himself to freak out. He stood in the back room, almost trembling. It was actually happening. He felt like he’d all but screwed up his chances when he told Crowley “he went too fast”, the demon hadn’t even hinted at anything romantic since barring the unfortunate tension created by the fortunately diverted apocalypse.

“Breathe, breathe.” He whispered, trying to compose himself, before stepping back out in to the bookshop where Crowley was waiting patiently.

He expected the Bentley to head in the direction of the Ritz, or maybe the National Gallery, but they were pulling up at the park of all place.

Well, thought Aziraphale as he stepped out of the passenger side, it was sentimental at least… but it was also bordering on zero degrees and the ducks had all taken shelter for the abrupt burst of wintery weather.

“What about the ducks, dear?” Aziraphale all but pouted. He knew Crowley had a soft spot for the little devils and it seemed unbefitting that they weren’t milling around trying to scavenge food the duo didn’t bring on their first actual date.

“What about the ducks?” Crowley said absently, he was leaning against the Bentley, somewhat out of the angels view.

“They’re special,”

“Of course they’re special, angel.”

Aziraphale sensed he wasn’t quite getting the point.

“This has to be special.” He snapped.

“Don’t worry, it will be. You walk on ahead and I’ll catch up.”

Aziraphale took off, imagining the redhead jogging up alongside him and linking their arms together. That wouldn’t be too fast would it? No, it’d be perfect.

Only half a minute later, he heard a burst of laughter. Someone had taken out their phone and was pointing the camera at something behind him. He turned to find a demon speeding towards him with a look of smug glee on his face. They collided somewhat and that’s when Aziraphale saw them:

The shoes.

“What the devil?” He recoiled slightly.

“Like ‘em, angel?” He kicked one of his feet up in an inhumanly display of flexibility. “Another fun millennial invention.” He drew out the words, letting them sink in, waiting for Aziraphale to screw up his nose and insist the demon cease and desist before people started staring.

People had already started staring and the Youtube video of a middle aged man zooming through the park in a three piece suit already had 50 hits and steadily rising.

But Aziraphale didn’t stammer and fluster, he just tipped his head curiously.

“Why would you think that was proper attire for a first date?”

Crowley took a few seconds to catch up to this one.

“Ngk… What?”

“Why are you wearing those.”

“No, no, the other thing. Since when is this a date?” Crowley’s cheeks burned.

He’d imagined it, sure, but always thought he’d get more than -15 minutes notice.

Aziraphale’s expression was unreadable.

“You asked me, dear.” With a tone of surprising patience. “To go out-out with you.”

This time Crowley actually fed these words and their connotations through the language centre of his brain, which promptly spat out:

“Oh, fuck. I did, didn’t I?”

To his surprise, the angel was giggling. Yes, giggling like a teenage girl with her first crush. He grabbed Crowley’s arm and began to lead him slowly back to the Bentley, somewhere along the way Crowley’s body gave up on movement and he was being dragged by Aziraphale, helpfully aided by the wheels on the soles of his shoes.

“I’m afraid I’ve shaken you up a bit with my modernity recently. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I’m not an idiot, my dear.” They stopped outside the Bentley. “I know what’s going on in the world, I just choose to ignore it.”

“I know that,” Crowley mumbled, suddenly embarrassed. “And I’m glad you ignore it. It’s what makes you, well, you. Actually, I was trying to get you to give up the whole charade.”

“That’s what these were for,” Crowley gestured.

Aziraphale looked down at the offensive shoes.

“My dear that’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard. I’d love you to sit down and explain to me how you thought all that was going to work out because I haven’t the foggiest idea about where you were going with this one.”

“Turns out I was going on a date.” Crowley without a hint of his usual sarcasm.

Aziraphale averted his eyes.

“Yes, well, sorry about the misunderstanding. I can see now you had… other things on your mind and I obviously misinterpreted.” He fussed about with the hem of his sleeve. Crowley took a step closer, cursing his stupid shoes and the way the slide treacherously over the frozen ground.

“I actually had you on my mind.” He laughed softly. “It was just you, and your books, and your mannerisms and they were drowning out my commonsense and I just wanted it all.”

Aziraphale’s breath caught in his throat, eyes searching the other man’s face as if trying to divine the truth.

“So, you mean you would be happy to—?”

“Honoured, in fact.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale exhaled with a giddy smile, and tentatively brought his arms up to Crowley’s shoulders, pulling him closer.

“I would too,” he whispered as they fell gracelessly in to their first hug in how-many-millenia. “Just one thing though,” the angel opened the passage door of the Bentley and Crowley frowned.

“What, angel?”

“So you do realise I’m going to have to tell everyone who asked that you tried to romance me by wearing heelies on our first date.”

Crowley glared at him, but a small smiled played at his lips.

“That’s so sad,” pouted Aziraphale. “Bentley, dear, play Despacito.”

In an uncharacteristic move, the Bentley acquiesced to this request, the angel slipped in to the passanger seat, smiling sweetly as the music blared.

"You bastard," Crowley said grinned as raced around to the driver's side.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr at [@sorrens](https://sorrens.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please feel free to browse my other Good Omens fics. I've written a few AUs, some angst, some crack, some questionable use of internet humour, basically ineffable husbands in many flavours.


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